Have you ever encountered people who exude positive vibes? How about those who emit negative vibes? Do you have the insight to differentiate between the two and the effects they have on you?
Many children have more insight than we give them credit for. Once, I saw an eight-year-old boy with his mother. During the consultation, somehow the conversation went to the “oral presentation” he had to do in front of his class the next day; he expressed that he felt rather anxious about it. At the end of the consultation, I casually asked him what he’s going to do for the rest of the afternoon. He shrugged his shoulder, but his mother answered, “You are going to your nana’s place while I pick up some groceries from the shop.” To my surprise, he answered, “Noooooo… I don’t want to go to nana’s place…” He then told his mother (and me) that his nana was a grumpy lady, and always made him feel bad when he was at her place; he did not want to feel bad that day because he needed to be in a “good shape” for his oral presentation the next day.
And this… IS RESILIENCE!
Resilience is to detect and to distance ourselves from people always with negative vibes, especially during critical period of our life.
The lesson I learnt: negative vibes are contagious; negative people often like to spread their negativity to those around them; as much as we want to be sympathetic towards them, we also need to draw a line especially when being around them takes a heavy toll on our mental health.
Currently the whole world is in a war zone, fighting against a pervasive and widespread “biological weapon”. To protect our physical health, we need to co-operate and practise social distancing. However, just as important, we need to preserve our mental health, by practising “sensible” distancing – to distance ourselves from people or posts that constantly emanate negative vibes.
Real Life Resilience 